


Side Effects

by vtn



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Consentacles, Crack, Drift Side Effects, M/M, Tentacle Mustache, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 16:22:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtn/pseuds/vtn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt is worried about the mental effects the drift may have had on Hermann. What he doesn't realize is he should really be worried about the physical ones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Side Effects

It's been a week now since the breach closed and Newt is starting to get worried about the fact that Gottlieb hasn't come out of his room.

Normally he'd just chalk this up to Hermann being a weird antisocial bastard, and for a while he does, but then over lunch Mako says something offhanded about how now she knows way too much about Raleigh like what his dirty socks smell like and that's really only the tip of the iceberg, you wouldn't want to hear the rest and then a cold fear grips Newt and makes him shudder all over.

He and Hermann didn't just drift with the kaiju. They drifted with each other. And that means Hermann knows everything. All of it.

"Uh, 'scuse me, I've gotta go take a dump," he says, and as Mako makes a face at him he scoots away and makes a break for it.

In the bathroom, Newt leans against the side of the stall, breathing heavily. Gottlieb knows, he must know. He must know that basically ever since Newt first saw his stupid arrogant face, and increasingly more and more as they've shared lab space and worked however reluctantly on the same projects, Newt has been fucking insane over him. 

How someone so obnoxious can be so hot, Newt isn't sure, although the fact that he's also ridiculously brilliant and knows more math than can fit into a normal human brain probably has something to do with it, and that intense look in his eye when he's right on the edge of figuring out a solution to something that means however Hermann Gottlieb holds himself back outwardly, he really, really loves what he does with that kind of genius passion that turns Newt on like absolutely nothing else in the world.

And since he's been right next to Newt basically every single day for the past several years, it's not like Newt could avoid thinking dirty thoughts about him. Especially since he's working 90 hour weeks most of the time and that means his chances of having a functioning sex life are basically zero to none, so it's mostly been him and his hand and a boner that's usually been killing him all day because of course it would be his fate that he liked tight pants, and thoughts of Hermann. How many times in his mind has he bent Hermann over the lab table--even though that would be, like, absurdly insanitary--or Hermann's starched, aseptic bed, or shoved him up against a random wall in the Shatterdome because in his fantasies who would give a fuck who saw them, he had to have Hermann right then? How many times?

How many times? Because all of that was right there, in his head, like an open book, and he drifted with Hermann, and now Hermann knows.

He finds himself knocking desperately on Hermann's door, which he'd given up doing days ago, but now he's a man on a mission.

"Look, Gottlieb, whatever this is, dude, we can talk about it, okay?" he says, mouth pressed up against the door, when Hermann doesn't answer, "I know you're probably really pissed at me, or never want to talk to me again, but look, okay, whatever happened, whatever you saw in the drift, none of it matters, okay? You've got to come back to the lab. There's so much stuff we need to work on. It can just be normal. I swear we can just go back to normal."

Silence.

"Please, dude, please?" he begs.

A bit more silence, and then Hermann shouts "Go away!" So much for that, then. 

Newt goes back to his room to sulk in a manly fashion, with a couple shots of this really awesome bourbon that Stacker bought him back when he had a breakthrough about the types of chemicals that could weaken the molecular bonds in kaiju skin, that they make about 50 bottles of every year so it probably costs more than Newt's life insurance payout.

And then at about three in the morning there is a soft, arrhythmic knock on Newt's door. 

He's still awake - after the buzz from the bourbon faded, he's been working on a draft of a paper on kaiju nucleotide structure which has mostly dissolved into reading comics and watching Youtube videos of axolotls because fuck yeah, axolotls are awesome and have faces like little tiny people. Newt finally drags himself out of his chair when the knock gets louder and more insistent.

Hermann Gottlieb is standing there, or more appropriately he's leaning on the doorframe because he's covering the lower half of his face with the one hand that he isn't using to knock on the door and hold his cane. He stands up as straight as he can and looks Newt in the eye with a look of wild desperation. 

"Hey," says Newt, because what are you supposed to say in this situation? "Uh, you wanna come in and have some Oreos?"

"No thank you," Hermann says, muffled beneath his hand. "I cannot understand how you eat that manufactured garbage. No--no, I am here because unfortunately, despite my best efforts, it appears that I need your help and yours specifically."

"Come in, come in, tell me what's up," Newt says, gesturing with his hand. Hermann follows him into his room and Newt shuts the door behind them. "Also, have you ever tried Oreos?" he continues conversationally. "You can't not like Oreos, it's basically scientifically impossible not to."

Hermann gives an exasperated sigh. "I'm on doctor's orders to avoid trans fats, and besides I have no time for such frivolous topics of conversation. Not when my very life might be in danger. Yes, Newton, listen to me, you mustn't laugh."

"What's going on? Your life? For Christ's sake, why didn't you tell me sooner? Sit down, dude, whatever this is, we're gonna solve it." Newt's heart is racing now, because that would just be his luck, to have Hermann be dying now or something before he's willing to talk about awkward gay thoughts in the drift.

"You mustn't laugh," Hermann repeats.

"Do I look like I'm fucking laughing?" Newt says, pointing to his face. 

Hermann draws in his breath sharply, squeezes his eyes shut, and then drops his hand.

Oh.

There's something on his face, a pair of twin protrusions extending dark and wet from his upper lip. It's hard to tell in the dark room, but Newt is still fairly sure it's kaiju in origin. 

He can't help himself. "Hermann!" he leaps up and grabs Hermann by his sides. "This must have happened in the drift, when we mind melded with the kaiju. There could have been DNA transfer. This is so interesting. Have you noticed any other side effects? Because actually I have this theory that my eye, the one that--"

"Newton, shut up or I may have to bludgeon you to death with this cane I am holding." Hermann's voice is raised and pinched. "Please, show some sensitivity for a man who may very well now be permanently disfigured."

"Okay." Newt lets go of Hermann, but he's still full of that electric nervous energy that gets into him whenever he finds out something new about the kaiju. He has to know more about this. For science. "Okay, so, uh, okay, can I get a little closer to it? If you let me examine it I can try and figure out its composition and if it's a cell type we've studied before."

With another deep sigh, Hermann nods. Newt switches on his desk lamp and ushers Hermann over to sit down in his chair. Hermann looks grateful for the opportunity. 

It's definitely kaiju. The flesh is that familiar dark blue-green, and when Newt touches the appendages they have that same slick filmy coating as kaiju skin (it's, as far as he can tell, a hydrodynamic thing, so they can move faster underwater, and it also keeps their pores moist when they're out in the air). They twitch gently under Newt's fingertips.

"Is there anything you can do?" Hermann asks Newt, his voice shaking even more than usual.

"I'll have to see," Newt says. "Come into my lab tomorrow. I'll chase everyone else out if you're that worried about being seen with them. Though honestly I don't think it would bother anyone."

"Right, they do have to look at you often enough," Hermann says.

"Dude. Cold. Anyway, I need to find out if it's DNA transfer or something else, and then we can look into solutions."

"When do you think you can have it taken care of?"

"I dunno." Newt shrugs. "It depends how conclusive the tests are. If it's something simple, couple days. Not sure beyond that." 

"Do you mean it could be--it could be there for the foreseeable future?" Hermann inclines his head and then draws up his shoulders with a quick, shuddering breath.

"Oh, come on, man, don't have a panic attack," Newt says, awkwardly patting Hermann's shoulder. "Weird shit happens in the Shatterdome all the time. It's like I said, no one's even going to notice. After what you've done for us I fucking dare them to make fun of you." It's not helping. Hermann is wringing his hands and panting. Newton grasps for something to say. "And, and, and you know, some people would actually find that sexy," he goes on, desperately. "There's actually - there's a huge market out there for, you know, tentacle erotica, like where--"

"I am quite aware, Newton," Hermann cuts him off, "that such things exist. It does seem the sort of perverse activity in which you would take interest." He rolls his eyes.

Newt had not considered that the conversation would go in that direction. He suddenly feels hot all over, and tugs uncomfortably at his shirt collar. He can't even look at Hermann now, because the tentacles are right there, and while the deposit to his spank bank would be appreciated, he can't think of Hermann that way. He can't. That's the whole problem, the whole thing. Except if the reason that Hermann was staying in his room was the tentacles after all, then...then...

"Ah, ha!" Hermann points a shaky finger at him, "I knew it." He does sound a little calmer now, actually. Making fun of Newt is familiar ground for him after all. "You are a filthy pervert who enjoys kaiju pornography." Hermann spits out the _p_ in _pornography_ and rolls the _r_ s. Newt would laugh at him if this hadn't suddenly triggered all of the same fears he was having earlier that Hermann knows very well what types of pornography Newt enjoys as well as absolutely everything else.

"Okay, this is off topic," he says nervously. "Besides," and he'll have to just rip the Band-Aid off now, "you drifted with me, dude, you know everything."

"Excuse me," Hermann says, affronted, "I happen to understand decency and personal privacy. I did not pry into those teeming parts of your brain." And then Hermann starts wringing his hands again, and his voice gets higher. "I suppose you must have done so, then, because after all decency appears to be a foreign concept to you."

"No, I wasn't even thinking about that when we were in the drift," Newt says. "I have no idea what you think about during your special Hermann time and I don't--" Well, if he said he didn't want to, that would be a lie. "This is off topic," he says again, instead.

"That's good, then, very good," Hermann says, almost like he's just talking to himself. "Some things were never meant to be known."

"Okay, well now you've got me curious," Newt teases him because goddammit, he just had to go and put his foot in his mouth again.

"Irrelevant!" Hermann echoes Newt's words. 

"Agreed," Newt says, relieved, and leans back in to look at the tentacles on Hermann's face. Except now it's all weird. He tries to ignore the conversation that just happened and tries to lightly tug on one of the tentacles. The tip wraps itself gently around his finger. "Does that hurt?" he asks.

Hermann snaps his head away from Newt, and the tentacle recedes with it. "Don't touch me! I can only imagine you're thinking perverted thoughts."

How can I solve this if I can't even touch the tentacles, Newt wants to say, but instead he feels himself blushing and turns away. He takes a deep breath.

"You are, aren't you?" Hermann pushes him. But he's not rushing out of the room.

"Th-that's, that's..." Newt struggles to find the correct response to this. And then suddenly Hermann's hand is clasping his wrist with iron strength. (Somehow Hermann has only two settings: 'drops expensive lab equipment uncontrollably' and 'is a vise'.)

"Are you?" Hermann asks him, and Newt has to turn back to face him. He's just inches from Hermann's face now. He can feel Hermann's breath.

"I..." He still can't figure out if there is anything he could say in this situation that wouldn't make it a quadrillion times worse.

He doesn't have to. One of the tentacles reaches out and strokes the side of Newt's face, pulling him closer. And since Hermann isn't moving away now, Newt kisses him. 

At first Hermann doesn't move his mouth, not like he's resisting but like he doesn't really know what's happening, but then he reaches out and grabs Newt's face with his hand and pushes his tongue into Newt's mouth, pressing his lips insistently against Newt's and Newt kisses back with all he's worth because what the fuck, this is the culmination of literally _years_ of blue balls and he's going to enjoy it or you can just kill him right here, right now.

The tentacle is still touching Newt's face, and now the other one is on the other side of his face, massaging his cheeks, tickling him under the ear. It makes him jump up a little, and the chair Hermann is in scoots backwards and they fall apart. Newt catches his breath, hands on his knees, and realizes he is so hard it hurts.

Hermann is looking a little panicked and also undeniably turned on, and he tries to get up out of the chair but can't quite do it and slumps back into it, so it rolls even further away from Newt.

"Uh, so, that happened," Newt says, his voice sounding way too loud. "What do we do now?"

"Is this what," Hermann starts, but then has to gasp for air again. "Is this what you were afraid I saw in the drift?"

"Yes," Newt says. "Well, that was the first part, I mean, it gets...I should really just stop talking now shouldn't I?"

"No," says Hermann, levelly. He's caught his breath now. "You should keep talking."

"I should?"

"Yes. Tell me everything." He twirls one of the tentacles around his finger like the kaiju-ified version of Snideley Whiplash. 

"You mean," says Newt. He sits down on his bed. Hermann's feet scrabble at the floor but eventually he manages to push the desk chair up close to the bed so he and Newt are right next to each other. "You mean,"--his heart is pounding--"you want me to tell you how insanely fucking badly I need you to fuck me?" he asks. Hermann nods and bites his lip in this way that makes Newt's cock jump in his pants. "You mean you want to know how often I've jerked off thinking about you? How many times I've wished I could just grab you and kiss the hell out of you in the lab because your mouth is like, ridiculously amazing?" How many times, all those times and all along, Hermann would have wanted to know after all. "Maybe you should've paid more attention in the drift, dude, because I've been thinking about you since the moment I fucking met you," he says, "and yes, actually, I do have a thing for tentacles and now you have a couple of them on your face and apparently they want us to kiss, so I'm cool with doing that again and also anywhere else you'd like to put those tentacles, I would be cool with."

Hermann sucks in his breath, and then reaches down, hands shaking, and undoes his fly. He sighs with relief. Newt does the same, since apparently that's okay now, and spreads his legs out on the bed. Hermann--holy shit--Hermann puts his hand between them.

Newt's brain is already nearly whiting out in a supernova of horny bliss and then Hermann says, "really, anywhere?" and Newt did not know it was possible to _be_ this hard.

"You heard me," Newt says, trying to sound much cockier than he feels right now. He looks Hermann in the eyes. Bits of Hermann's hair are coming loose, sticking to his forehead with sweat. One of the tentacles curls and uncurls. "An-y-where."

"Get me onto the bed, you bloody fool," Hermann says, pulling away from Newt's crotch to reach out his hands, and Newt is happy to oblige, pulling Hermann up onto him and _oh_ , the weight of Hermann's small wiry body on top of him and Hermann's nose pressing into his neck, his breath on Newt's collar, _his tentacles_ touching Newt's face is everything he ever needed in this life, just kill him now and he will die happy. "Take my pants off, will you?" 

Newt does, and ohhh boy, Hermann has basically a perfect ass, which Newt can't help squeezing as he pulls Hermann's underwear down (and Hermann makes this absolutely incredible noise that hopefully will now be permanently etched into Newt's brain). Hermann's cock pops out, flushed and wet at the slit. Newt gives it a couple of quick strokes with his hand, which makes Hermann make even more amazing noises, deep in his throat, and then he reluctantly lets go in order to undress. He gets the rest of Hermann's clothes off, too, almost too fast to really think about what he's doing.

"Well, this is embarrassing," Hermann says, and Newt says "What?" because he can't think of anything about this that is anything other than seriously fucking awesome. Hermann gestures at his lower body.

It still takes Newt a minute. "Oh, your legs, I guess," he says when it dawns on him. "Well, sure, you've got some atrophying going on there, but it's nothing I haven't seen before. Meanwhile you still have a really hot ass, seriously, have you ever looked at your ass in a mirror?"

"You," Hermann says, looking Newt right in the eye, "You have a hot ass as well." 

Newt grabs Hermann and kisses him again. He runs his hands over the tentacles, and they curl around his fingers almost happily. "So," Newt says, pulling away and running a hand down Hermann's chest to rub his cock again, completely shamelessly, watching Hermann lean his head back and listening to him groan and his breath go ragged, "Wanna find out what those tentacles are capable of?"

"I have no doubt that they could bring you to orgasm," Hermann stammers, "And I would quite like to watch that happen."

"Yes, sir," Newt says cheerily as his cock jumps again. Hermann is taking the initiative now, sliding down Newt's body and rubbing his hands along Newt's chest, his stomach, his pelvis, and just when Newt thinks he can't go one second more without contact Hermann just straight up swallows Newt's dick and it takes an insane amount of willpower to not just blow his load then and there but no way in hell is he not letting Hermann use his new and interesting appendages in new and interesting ways. 

Speaking of which. One of the tentacles wraps around the base of Newt's dick and the other one gently slides over his balls. "Oh, are you controlling them?" Newt says, excitedly. 

Hermann's mouth slips off him. "I think so," he says, looking up at Newt. "It's a bit strange, but they do appear to be quite prehensile."

"I," Newt gasps because the tentacle on his dick is _squeezing_ now, "I can tell." He nods briskly. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I'd prefer not to have to drift with you just to enjoy one sexual encounter, so, please illuminate me."

"Think how awesome sex in the drift would be though," says Newt, because oh boy is he thinking about it. They're going to have to try that at some point. "Anyway, I'm thinking--your tentacles, my ass. Could we...?"

Hermann's face goes through a series of contortions. "You, you, you," is all he can manage to say. He leans back in and slaps at Newt's legs with his hands, but he can't seem to get together the strength to push them apart. "Sp-spread your god damned legs, Newton Geiszler," he hisses.

Newt obliges, feeling yet another blush wash over him. Things they're going to have to try #2: exploring the possibilities of Hermann giving him orders. And now there is so much time. And now there is a tentacle attached to Hermann's face that is pressing between his legs, pressing inside him, stretching him out, turning his limbs into jelly and making his dick throb even more insistently.

"Oh my," Hermann says, "You know, these t-tentacles are quite sensitive. And your...you are quite tight, there, Newton."

"Oh!" Newt feels like his whole brain is lighting up. "They're probably tactile sensors, you know, like whiskers. It's probably from one of the variants that's shaped more like a fish, so they can feel in front of it when it swims. That--oh my fucking--Jesus fucking Christ, Hermann, fuck." He's lost the end of his sentence because the tentacle has pushed up further inside him while the other one is still on his cock, and the base of it is pressing up against his prostate which feels _awesome_. Man, why isn't the human penis prehensile? he thinks dazedly. There would be so many possibilities. 

"Do you want me to suck you again, Newton?" Hermann asks him.

"Yeah, yeah, that would be cool," Newton gasps, and Hermann's lips slide over his erection again, his tongue rubbing up against Newton's frenulum. "Okay, I can probably only last a little longer." His hips are bucking up into Hermann's mouth now, and the tentacle on his dick is starting to stroke up and down while the one in his ass is sort of, like, pulsating, and the tip of it is curling inside him. His balls go tight and he looks Hermann right in the eye, right in those gorgeous, intense, focused eyes and the look he sees there is what gets him over the edge. He comes in a hot, hard burst.

Hermann swallows, his nostrils flaring, and sucks Newt's head until he's completely empty and limp. Newt's cock slips out of Hermann's mouth and he rolls onto his side to catch his breath. The tentacles recede from his ass and cock, and one of them sort of gently pats him on the leg, which makes him laugh. 

"Well," Newt says, stretching, even more dazed now, delirious happiness filling him. "I'd better take care of you now. Get the hell up here, you gorgeous thing."

"Oh, so you didn't notice," says Hermann. 

"Huh?" 

"During your orgasm, you didn't notice. Just watching you, actually, it...well." Hermann actually blushes then. It's the first time Newt has ever seen color in his face. And it's fucking hot. "It brought me to climax as well, actually."

"Whoa." Newt looks down. It's true. The sheets are wet between them and Hermann's cock is soft and slick. "I've never seen that happen before. That's awesome." And that's what that amazing look in his eyes was. Newt is going to take every possible opportunity he can get to see that look again.

"Only you would say that," Hermann says, shifting up the bed to lie next to Newt. "And only you would let me penetrate you with these...appendages of indeterminate origin and character that have sprouted from my face. Really, all this time, I should have guessed it would be you. That this would only be natural." 

"Hey, yeah," says Newt. "Actually, given all the crazy shit that's happened to us in the past few weeks, this? This makes a surprising amount of sense." He pushes his glasses up his nose, and then Hermann kisses him again.

\---

Newt has his first breakthrough the very next day, which is that the cells that make up the tentacles are purely epidermal, so the tentacles can be painlessly removed by quickly freezing them off like a wart. Both he and Hermann are admittedly a little sorry to see them go, but being comfortable going out in public again (albeit with a bandage across his upper lip) is worth the loss.

After about five days of the routine freezes to keep the growth back, Newt is able to isolate the proteins that are telling Hermann's cells to grow the tentacles--the whisker thing tipped him off; they're actually really similar to the ones found in mice--and through some splicing magic with the resident genetics experts he's able to turn all the proteins off and Hermann is finally free of his Lovecraftian mustache. 

"But, you know," Newt says casually, "we also know how to turn them back on, if that's ever of interest to you. I mean, purely scientific interest, of course."

"Right, purely scientific," Hermann agrees. "Perhaps eventually, but I believe we have a list to get through first." 

"That's right!" Newt says. "I'll go bug Herc about letting us in the simulator. For important research purposes."

"Quite," Hermann says, nodding, and the look in his eyes is earnest. "In fact, I can't imagine a more important thing."

**Author's Note:**

> So today I was shopping and I came upon [this novelty item](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BV6vLVgIYAAG3li.jpg). My immediate response was to tweet that someone, somewhere had written fanfiction about it. 
> 
> And then I realized that hey, _I_ could be that someone. And thus tentacle mustache smut was born.
> 
> If any of my readers are biologists, please let me know if there's any particularly egregious science failure; my understanding is tenuous at best.


End file.
